Monthly Archives: May 2012

Hura Brasiliensis is a remedy which is made from the milky-white sap extracted from this South American tree. It is the type of sap which can be used to make rubber or latex products, and you could think of the way a latex condom functions to create a separation or lack of true contact in a sexual embrace as an analogy for the state of mind of this ideogenic remedy. Homoeopathically, this is also a remedy which has been used quite successfully in the treatment of leprosy, which I’ll use to further illustrate the theme of this belief state.

We’ve seen in some of the ideogenic remedies various forms of how our fundamental split manifests in different states of mind, such as the split between mind and body in Cannabis, or between the ‘I’ and everything else in Anhalonium. In Hura, the split is perceived at the social level, especially in the sense of the feeling of being despised or an outcast, as in the case of a leper. There are, of course, some very real situations in which someone may be outcast from a group, and may suffer this feeling, but understanding the state of mind of an ideogenic remedy means to be able to see its state of mind even without an obvious situational causation.

At a deeper level, our split, or separation from the world creates a gap, or longing within our mind to reconnect or to “know” the world. “Absence makes the heart grow fonder”, and so is born our desire to “know” the world we are increasingly separate from. The condom analogy I mentioned above represents this feeling that we increasingly have, in terms of our inability to truly connect with, and to know the living content of the world. Our culture which is based on the mindset of materialism (ie that everything in the world is made up of bits of physical ‘stuff’), is one in which we inevitably feel more and more cut off, or alienated.

At the emotional level, there are a whole range of feelings in Hura which relate back to the feeling of being a leper, or an outcast. An increasing desperation, and hectic activity to try to return to normal are inevitably followed by hopelessness. The position is felt to be that of a victim of bad luck or misfortune.

The truth, coming out the other side of the healing process of this remedy, is that while we are separate as individuals, we do have the capacity to reconnect, and interpenetrate with other people, and other living processes, in a way which adds to our knowledge, rather than increasing our feeling of isolation. As in a true healthy marriage, the two separate individuals create more by being together, yet do so through a strengthened individuality of each party.

Hydrogen is the next remedy from the ideogenic realm to be presented. It is the first element on the periodic table, which appears as the perfect model atom — 1 proton and 1 electron. It is considered to be the very first character to walk onto the stage of the story of the universe following the Big Bang. Why does this sound like a grade 10 science classroom, so far? Understanding the nature of the source of a medicine is very helpful for understanding its essence, and ultimately its state of mind.

Hydrogen has a state of mind which is extremely expansive, or put another way, spacey. Enormously spacey — as big as the entire universe, in fact. Thinking of how the universe began, grand scientific and philosophical questions arise about space and time itself. This is the feeling of the patient in a Hydrogen state of mind — connected to much larger entities than their self. Their self, in fact, is completely obscured, and not featured within their state of mind.

While the patient needing Hydrogen may not manifest such grand thoughts or feelings about their connection to the beginning of space and time, and all of creation, they may display more mundane symptoms, such as forgetfulness, and an inability to focus or concentrate. Clues about a patient being in a Hydrogen state can include the feeling that “the lights are on, but no one’s home” — you attempt to make contact, but it is as if there is no personality or ego to connect with.

This state may emerge as part of the patient’s involvement in spiritual or mystical groups which preach such grand concepts of fostering a connection to everything, that “all is one”, and that all worldly feelings and desires are to be renounced. Mind you, the person who gravitates to such a group will already be resonating with this state of mind, which simply provides a vehicle through which it can be expressed more fully.

This is an even greater obscuring of the self than we see in a Cannabis state of mind, which is more focussed on discharging the source of power of the individual. In Hydrogen, the Self is the object to be completely eliminated from the equation. The Self is regarded as a tiny insignificant speck compared to the vastness of the whole of creation.

The incredibly expansive and connected feeling within Hydrogen is also matched by its polar opposite, which is the deepest, darkest depression – the feeling of being nothing, or even of being tortured by their constraint within their small Self, as the most tortuous form of trap imaginable.

This is a phase that many patients may eventually pass through if they go deep enough into their treatment, where the very nature of the Self and its purpose begins to come up as a more significant element of the mind. You may see how this can also be an important root belief to address which will cause a blockage to the discovery and unfolding of the individual desire function of the person, and to properly activate their resonance organ to more fully connect with it.

The ideogenic remedy I’m presenting today is Thuja. This is another homeopathic which can be applied on more than one level, and you may have had experience with this remedy for the treatment of warts. The core belief of this remedy, as it is used in the Ideogenic realm, is related to the feeling of having a wart — something ugly about oneself, which one desires to keep hidden. Thuja feels dirty, or even ‘sinful’ within themselves, as if there is something fundamentally flawed about their Self. Much energy is put into keeping their inner self, which they perceive to be flawed, hidden from society. The emotion of guilt can be very strong, along with feelings of low self-esteem. The classic situation to precipitate this state is in a highly rigid religious community, but it may also emerge in a non-religious context, such as the common experience of feeling ugly in comparison to the omnipresent images of super-models in our media, and other perfected photoshop images.

Thuja will feel weak, even quite fragile, and may even express the delusion that parts of them are “made out of glass”. Their core feeling is that they will lose face if someone discovers their weakness, which is kept covered up as best as possible. Their compensation often includes having many fixed ideas and behaviours, as well as an excessive amount of attention paid to tiny details. They are very rigid in their thought patterns, speech patterns, and behaviours. The tremendous energy it takes to create such patterns functions to keep people’s attention away from seeing their weak core. The weakness or fragility can also manifest physically, in terms of food or environmental sensitivities.

The song Frail by Jars of Clay captures some of the feeling of Thuja’s fragility, and attempting to keep it hidden.

There are two homeopathic remedies which are largely similar, as they are derived from the same plant : Coca and Cocaine. I am presenting them together in this blog post, as from an ideogenic point of view, they touch on the same theme. Coca is the remedy potentized from the leaves of the coca plant; while Cocaine also originates from the leaves of the coca plant, it is much more processed, and its effects much more intensified. The leaves of the coca plant have traditionally been chewed on by mountain climbers as a means of preventing altitude sickness. This gives us a big hint as to the core theme of the remedy revolving around fear of heights and fear of falling.

As we saw that Cannabis has a strong cultural affinity for the Hippie movement (based on a strong similarity in state of mind), Cocaine has a cultural affinity for the state of mind surrounding high-powered executives, as well as the players in and around Hollywood film production. Both of these situations relate so strongly to the theme of Cocaine, as they involve acts of incredible human capacity, where much is risked in order to achieve high returns. A Hollywood star can rise to the top just as quickly as he or she can fall to ruin, and the dynamics and pressure of this are embodied in the remedy state of Cocaine.

There is also a similarity here to Nux Vomica, which is a state driven by the false ego to achieve their worldly ambitions, and will burn themselves out in the process. Cocaine is the ultimate “performance anxiety” remedy, where the projected success of the ego is seen as a gigantic task, and which can produce all forms of anxiety and tension as part of the means to get there. Cocaine is used medically as a local anaesthetic, which is analagous to all of the pains which needed to be dulled as someone forces themselves to climb “to the top”. It never ceases to amaze me how there are no accidents in terms of which drugs tend to be used by which groups of people, based on the unconscious drive to match one’s internal ideogenic state with a crude form of the similar medicine.

Although I’ve portrayed this state in a particular way, it is not only applicable for high-powered executives and Hollywood types, but in anyone who has taken on this state of mind in their own situation. I use the more extreme examples, as they very vividly portray the theme of the remedy, but always keep in mind that any state of mind can exist at much more subtle levels in everyday life. The issue of separating out the ambitions of our false ego from the true objective desire of our Self can be helped with this remedy in whatever form it has taken.

You may recall the remedy Agaricus from my recent blog post about its use as a first aid remedy for frostbite or hypothermia. Like some other first aid remedies, it has uses which can cross over into different jurisdictions of Heilkunst treatment, such as from the first aid jurisdiction into the ideogenic realm. Arnica is another example of a first aid remedy which also crosses over into another jurisdiction of the Chthonic Realm, which we’ll see more of in an upcoming blog post.

Agaricus is best known in its common form as a recreational drug known as “magic mushrooms”. Its particular form of delusions and bodily effects outline the general ideogenic disease state for which it is curative.

When applied at this level, Agaricus will be selected for patients who have the theme of a very weak will combined with dependence. They will tend to be in a situation of being dominated by a strong personality, which they unconsciously desire in order to be able to avoid taking responsibility for their own decisions. Often, one of the healative experiences of this remedy involves a discharge of more aggressive thoughts and behaviour, which was buried by years of dependence and weak will.

Agaricus has very strong ties with the cancer miasm, which you may recall has a theme of a very weakened sense of self. It is no accident that the Agaricus state of mind is one with a very high degree of anxiety, particularly for dying from cancer. They have a very poor sense of perspective, which you can imagine that Alice (from Alice in Wonderland) suffered when her body size kept changing from giant to tiny, after she ingested a mushroom. They “turn molehills into mountains”, and freak out that every tiny symptom may be a sign of cancer.

Their anxiety is matched only by their excitability, and they can initiate streams of monologue which shift aimlessly from one topic to the next, while not actually participating in a 2-way conversation, or even being responsive to questions. They may have a tendency to be drawn to very obscure or strange topics which they may have a deep fascination for.

Physically, they may be quite awkward or clumsy, as they can have a poor sense of perspective and distance, as well as a poorly formed connection between the inner will power with their physical body. At the more extreme end of this disease, their can be twitches, or even convulsions, and sometimes will prove to be a helpful remedy for conditions such as epilepsy or multiple sclerosis.

Anacardium Orientale is the homepathic remedy made from the crushed seed of the marking nut. Like Cannabis, and Anhalonium, it is also themed around a split — in this case, it is the split emerging from the conflicted feeling of not knowing if one is ‘good’ or ‘bad’, in a moral sense. It is related to a core layer of armoring, where the childhood stages were formed in a context of overly strict controls by one or both parents, where the natural desires and decisions were not allowed free expression, and much or all of the child’s energy was tied up in external rules and authority structures.

The often portrayed cartoon character image of an angel on one shoulder, and a devil on the other, each whispering their imperatives into the ears of the protagonist, is a clear representation of the feeling of being torn within this remedy state. Typical situations of fighting with oneself over issues of one’s will power, such as in desperately trying not to go off of one’s diet into temptation, illustrate this powerful self-conflict.

The presentation of this remedy state may often be in the form of an outward compliance with rules or authority, but with an incredible seething rage and hatred simmering invisibly on the inside. When this energy is not successfully contained, you’ll see outbursts of incredible profanity, and a speech which spews out aggressive or controlling forms of language.

Anacardium will feel very cut off from their feelings, and may have little or no access to their own inner moral compass as a reference point. A curious pattern that we’ve seen many times, especially when a younger child is in this state, is a strange behaviour of ‘running away’, at least in terms of staying always physically out of reach of the increasingly concerned parent. As a teenager, this is the “rebel without a cause” who breaks free from the perceived constraints of society, and avoids being subsumed by any structure of rule or order.

The homeopathic remedy Anhalonium is derived from a species of cactus which produces peyote, and which is famously used in some Native American rituals. In its crude form it is one of the group of hallucinogenic drugs. Where Cannabis portrayed the theme of the split between mind and body, Anhalonium relates more to the split between self and world. The sense of having no boundaries of self, and being merged with the whole world and cosmos is one of the core effects of this drug.

The opposite feeling, of being separate, and cut off from humanity can be part of the origin of this disease state of mind. The state of fear derived from the sense of separateness of the ego, and mortality of the self will be at the origin of the state of mind of Anhalonium. This is the experience or feeling of being without roots, identity, family, or even a personal history. Similarly, there may be a feeling of drifting aimlessly through time and space, or even the delusion of being immortal. There is a very weak will power for taking outer actions, yet a rich inner world of visions or inner explorations. The feeling can be of utter aloneness, without any connection to any one or any thing in the world.

This state may emerge from various forms of trauma, including intensive brainwashing undergone by cult members. It can also originate in the absence of any trauma, in terms of a person’s natural process of development, and difficulty in confronting these core issues of their identity and sense of purpose.

The whole goal and direction of Heilkunst treatment drives the patient further and further into a complete connection with their own self, and the Anhalonium state will sometimes come out very strongly on the way to the patient completing this connection. Looked at a slightly different way, many people may exist in a mild form of this state on a chronic basis before they begin treatment, as a persistent inability for them to know themselves, in terms of a clear identity or purpose. They may not consciously understand that this state is what is keeping them from feeling a sense of satisfaction in their own life.

I’ll begin our exploration of some of the ideogenic remedies with the widely known recreational drug cannabis indica. It is one of a few remedies which address a basic ideogenic theme, which is the split which we all feel in one way or another — whether between mind and body, or our self and the world, the structure of modern consciousness is built on such a fundamental split.

In the Cannabis state of mind, the meaning of this split is one of escaping the perceived dangers of the outer world, and retreating into a safe inner world of one’s own construction. On this point, there are some autism cases which respond positively to this remedy as part of their overall Heilkunst treatment. Threat and danger is a theme which runs through this remedy, with forms of anxiety or even panic attack as part of its picture.

The symptoms of Cannabis are predominantly in the mental sphere, where incredible alternate realities or enticing visions are constructed like “sandcastles in the sky”. This is a very common state of mind within modern consciousness, where our brain-mind largely predominates over our body-mind, and most people live in a very abstracted world, disconnected from their own bodily sensations or emotions. As Sir Ken Robinson once said [in paraphrase] : “He considers his body as a convenient vehicle to carry his head around”. Various forms of theorizing and idealistic philosophies emerge from the root of this type of split.

Cannabis Indica is in widespread use as a recreational drug, and any time something exists at a mass scale like that, I wonder from a Heilkunst perspective what the underlying phenomenon is which is unconsciously driving it. The split from reality into a “head consciousness” is the origin of this ideogenic disease state. There is also a very weakened sense of identity as well as a weak sense of connection with others.

The cultural phenomenon of the Hippies is a very vivid illustration of the Cannabis state of mind. It is definitely no accident that Cannabis was one of the primary drugs of choice during the Hippie movement, which was a very strong manifestation of this underlying state of mind. A movement full of theoretical constructs (about ideal social structures, and the truth of Eastern religions, etc.) as a means of buffering against some of the harsh realities of the time (such as the Vietnam war), and also replaced with visions of bright colours (Hippie clothing, flowers, etc.) are all perfect characterizations of this state of mind. Also, the commune-style of living further speaks to the breakdown of the individual identity in Cannabis. The promiscuity of the ‘Free Love’ movement is also characteristic of this remedy.

Time magazine featured a cover story in July 1967 called “The Hippies: The Philosophy of a Subculture.” The article described the guidelines of the hippie code: “Do your own thing, wherever you have to do it and whenever you want. Drop out. Leave society as you have known it. Leave it utterly. Blow the mind of every straight person you can reach. Turn them on, if not to drugs, then to beauty, love, honesty, fun.”

As I’ve said a number of times, I do not condone the use of “medical marijuana”, whether prescribed by a doctor, or self-prescribed, as it is generally used to suppress rather than cure a disease. However, the use of the potentized form of this substance prescribed homeopathically for this particular state of mind can work wonders at relieving a patient from this state of mind, as well as any chronic physical symptoms which are connected to it for them.

In Dr. Hahnemann’s system of medicine, there is a fundamental spectrum of disease laid out between the ‘highest’, and the ‘deepest’ diseases, which are each addressed in particular ways. In technical terms, this relates to what we call the ‘tonic’ diseases, and ‘pathic’ diseases, which, roughly speaking, refer to the core disease disturbance itself (tonic), and the expression of the disease in terms of symptoms (pathic).

The treatment and cure of the highest diseases relate to the highest goals of health in Heilkunst, and conceptually speaking, come at the end of treatment (although in reality, multiple dimensions are usually being addressed at the same time). They also represent the most complex aspect of treatment, in terms of diagnosis and finding the correct remediation. This is the disease dimension or jurisdiction known as “ideogenic”, which is a word indicating that they are diseases which originate from false beliefs, delusions, or illusions. Think, for example, of traditional societies or tribes which believed in the power of putting a curse on someone, and the very real psychosomatic symptoms which someone could be made to suffer if they believed that a curse was placed on them by someone with the power to do so.

Over the next few days, I’ll present some of the remedies of this ideogenic realm which form some of the earlier layers of this part of treatment, and which can be presented and understood in terms of specific remedies and their characteristics. This first layer of the Ideogenic realm, in terms of the homeopathic remedies used to treat it, is made up of the homeopathic potencies of some commonly known recreational drugs, such as Cannabis Indica, Cocainum, or Anhalonium (Peyote).

The reason that these substances correlate with this realm of Heilkunst treatment, is that in their crude natural form, they produce all forms of illusions, delusions, and other distortions of our perception of reality. Based on the curative principle of the law of similars, each of these unique states matches a particular archetypal delusion, and is very useful to start breaking through the patient’s belief structure. Once you understand the power of these remedies which have been potentized for homeopathic use, as opposed to the recreational use in their crude form (with related side effects), you’ll understand why I am not for “medical marijuana” for general use.

Stay tuned for the next few days, as we enjoy this virtual “trip” together through the ideogenic realm of delusions, illusions, and beliefs. This series will cover the following remedies:

One of the most common questions which new patients ask, is if the remedies will cause any side effects. Some already will have been pre-educated about healing reactions, and want to know what to expect in terms of what they could experience with the remedies.

It is a very good question, and an important one to clear up at the beginning of treatment. In the world of conventional medicine, it is a given that any prescribed drug will cause side effects — in fact, it is a very big problem in medicine, as long-term side effects eventually become a bigger health issue than the original disease itself. There are cases I’ve had where a patient is on a large list of drugs, where at least 80% of them are solely being used to try to reduce the side effects of the original drugs! This is a deadly form of a downward spiral into the abyss of pharmaceutical drugs.

The name “side effect” should actually be changed to something more honest, such as “disease effect”, as that is exactly what they are — the effects of a drug is actually to create a new, artificial disease in the body which does not cure the natural disease that the patient is suffering, but simply displaces it. The visible side effects are only the tip of the iceberg of the total disease effects which are being created. In the insane ‘logic’ of allopathic medicine, this is assumed to be the best that we can do in the face of disease, which is only to play a deadly “shell game”, shuffling different symptoms back and forth until it is difficult to say exactly which drug (artificial disease) killed the patient in the end. Even in more short-term use of drugs, there is always some damage to some organ or system in the body, which is important to be aware of, and to apply specific detox protocols to both during and after the fact.

A healing reaction, in contrast, which new patients initially equate to be the same as side effects, is actually a very positive and temporary process of the body and mind to discharge a disease, or at least push it from a more to a less important organ or system of the body. The temporary emotional discharges, such as irritability or sadness, or physical discharges on the skin, or through the other organs of elimination, are actually not caused by the remedy, but are being pushed out of the body by its own innate healing power, after the remedy has done its job of curing the disease.

In the case of taking a dry remedy, the patient will typically hit the peak of the healing reaction approximately 7 to 12 days afterwards; in fact, some learn to mark those days on their calendar, so that they are not surprised when the healing reaction surfaces. All true healing reactions are very positive in terms of gaining a greater overall state of health, and are always temporary. If a so-called ‘healing reaction’ lasts for an extended period of time, then it is usually something else which needs to be assessed to be cleared up with a different remedy.

Feel free to share some of your more interesting healing reaction stories in the comments below.